Sue Lani Madsen: All along the political spectrum you’ll find people saying one thing, doing another
Readers are welcome to love it or hate it. Six months of Saturday columns in the archives is a good time to reflect on some of the comments from those who hate it.
No human being on Earth is free of hypocrisy. We complain about impatient drivers, then find ourselves blocked in the passing lane muttering about a minimum speed limit. We laugh at a news story of a Darwin Award winner, then realize we just nearly made runner-up. We extol the virtues of personal choice and the next week argue for restricting individual choices when they conflict with our own convenience.
Speaking of choices, last week’s emailed responses ran heavily in favor of reopening the discussion on abortion to reflect new scientific knowledge on when life begins. Then there were those who jumped straight to old pro-choice rhetoric. Just guessing, but someone who writes “I’m pro-choice and I won’t give up my most personal decisions, legal and Constitutional rights and bodily autonomy” is likely the same person who will turn around and fight vouchers for parental choice of schools, support infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms and applaud mandatory vaccinations imposed in violation of bodily autonomy.
We are easily blind to our own hypocrisy. Last year, I chuckled at pictures of the protesters floating on Puget Sound in their petroleum-based kayaks, portaged to the water in petroleum-powered vehicles, wearing life jackets, clothing and helmets made from petroleum derivatives. Reminded me of a young friend who turned vegetarian and came into the office with a new goosedown ski jacket. I pointed out the geese didn’t voluntarily give up their feathers.
We are vulnerable to hypocrisy because we value our freedom to act in our own self-interest. We don’t naturally grant the same consideration to others, sometimes seeking to use government as a tool to impose our interests on others. The Bill of Rights was specifically designed to limit government’s ability to be used this way.
From a strictly constitutional originalist world view, for example, there is no basis in the Bill of Rights for any interference with the Second Amendment right to bear arms. However, most Second Amendment defenders (including the NRA) agree it’s in our collective self-interest to allow limited restrictions. Emphasis on limited.
Conservatives turn around and object to values-free violence and bias in the media. Some of the most vocal defenders of freedom of expression are from the movie industry. When Hollywood defends the First Amendment and attacks the Second, you can smell the hypocrisy in the air as acrid as gun smoke in a shoot-’em-up.
Journalists would rightly howl at the idea of mental health and criminal background checks for licensing a newspaper or website. Yet even movie makers and newspaper editors accept limited restrictions. Emphasis on limited.
We are always eager to point out the speck in another’s eye without first removing the log from our own. It’s human nature. But an opinion column is in the speck identification business.
Criticizing government transportation spending doesn’t mean giving up driving on public roads. Following the current overly complicated tax code, loopholes and all, doesn’t stand in the way of advocating for a simpler, loophole-free tax system. Benefiting from a government program one didn’t ask for does not remove a citizen’s right to criticize the program. Advocating for smaller government doesn’t mean abolishing government.
Bemoaning big corporations but loving bigger government? One begets the other. Now there’s a speck of hypocrisy worth pointing out.
But that’s just my opinion.
Sue Lani Madsen can be reached at rulingpen@gmail.com or on Twitter: @SueLaniMadsen.